Administering and using the Outlook add-in

The Pexip Service add-in for Outlook lets you easily add a VMR — either your own, or a one-time-use room — to meetings that you create or edit in your Outlook desktop client.

This topic includes information on:

Note: The Pexip Service add-in replaces the previously available Pexip Service Outlook Plug-in, which is no longer under development. We recommend all users migrate to the new Outlook add-in described in this topic.

Supported Exchange servers

The Pexip Service add-in is available for both PC and Mac, and can be used by any Outlook user with a Microsoft managed email domain. This means that your company either:

  • manages email via an online Office 365 account (or “webmail” login), or
  • manages email via a Microsoft Exchange account.

Exchange accounts can be accessed online or through the Outlook desktop app.

The add-in is supported on the following Microsoft Exchange deployments:

  • Office 365
  • Exchange 2013 (with the latest updates)
  • Exchange 2016 (with the latest updates)

Supported Outlook clients

The Pexip Service add-in is supported in all Outlook desktop and web (OWA) clients that meet the requirements described in this article from Microsoft.

Distributing the add-in

The Pexip Service add-in can be distributed to your end users in two ways:

  • Directly from Microsoft Windows AppSource store.

    Users must have access to the AppSource store and have admin rights to the PC or device on which they are installing the add-in.

  • A centrally distributed link / XML file. The file can be found here.

    To centrally deploy the add-in for Office365/Exchange online, see this Microsoft article.

Using the add-in

  1. Check that your IT team has made the Pexip Service add-in available to Outlook users — it's supported in the desktop and web versions of Outlook. You may need to download the Pexip Service add-in from the Microsoft Windows AppSource store. In other cases it may be made available to you automatically.

  2. When the Pexip Service add-in has been installed, you see a Pexip Service button with the Pexip logo when you are creating or editing a meeting invitation. Click this button to open the add-in:

  3. If asked, log into the app by entering your Pexip username and password:

  4. You now see the Make it a video meeting panel:

    Firstly, decide where to host the meeting:

    • By default, the meeting will be hosted in your own VMR.

    • However, if you want to create a unique VMR just for this meeting, select Create a one-time room.

      One-time rooms are meant for a single, one-off meeting. They are useful when:

      • You don't want to think about changing PIN codes, but still want the privacy.
      • You have back-to-back meetings and are worried there might be "collisions" between participants in different meetings.
      • You don't want to communicate your personal VMR link externally.

      Note: One-time rooms that have not been used for over 100 days are deleted. This means that if a one-time room is created for a meeting that is scheduled 100 days into the future, that room will be deleted before its scheduled start time (unless that room has been used in the intervening period) and the meeting join links will fail. You can continue to use a one-time room in a recurring meeting providing the repeat interval is less than every 100 days.

    Then, decide how much joining information you want to add to the invitation:

    • To make it easy for your guests to join without needing to read a lot of text, you can add a simple, single link to the VMR. Do this by selecting Add meeting link.
    • However, if you’d like to give participants all the options for joining, select Add advanced room info. This will add joining instructions for browsers, Skype for Business, video systems (SIP/H.323), and telephones.
    • If you only want to include some of the options for joining, select Customize advanced room info, and select which joining instructions to include.

The appropriate links and join information are added to the meeting invitation.

Troubleshooting

Issue Description Suggested resolution
Add-in fails to install

Users attempting to install the add-in get a message:

  • Add-in failed to install
    REST API is not yet supported for this mailbox"

 See this article from Microsoft: https://support.microsoft.com/nb-no/help/4462988/rest-api-is-not-yet-supported-for-this-mailbox-error
E-mail invitations do not show country-specific characters When join instructions are inserted into a meeting invitation using the Outlook add-in, country-specific characters are not displayed correctly.

In Outlook, go to File > Options > Advanced and ensure that Allow UTF-8 support in mailto: protocol has been enabled: